Earlier today, demonstrating his preference for action over reason, President Trump signed an executive order to officially withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. On the one hand, it’s refreshing to witness the rare act of a politician fulfilling a campaign pledge. On the other hand, there is nothing else good about it. Trump detonated a bomb; six years of negotiations went boom; now what?
To a president who seems intent on turning the country inward, raising the barricades, demanding self-sufficiency, and eschewing the outside world, the TPP was an obvious target. But what’s especially disconcerting is that the president didn’t need to go this far to keep TPP out of play. The agreement couldn’t possibly take effect without congressional passage of implementing legislation, and his signature affixed. He could have just kept TPP on the back-burner in the event that its utility, relevance, or imperative to U.S. economic and geostrategic objectives became evident, as his term progressed. Because it will.
My colleagues and I did a thorough, chapter-by-chapter assessment of the TPP and concluded that, on net, implementation would advance our economic freedoms. But there is also a geostrategic rationale for the TPP that compels beyond the text of the agreement. I presented that case in a few different articles, but here’s an excerpt from the most recent oped, in The Hill:
https://www.cato.org/blog/withdrawing-tpp-was-senseless-act-wanton-destruction
To a president who seems intent on turning the country inward, raising the barricades, demanding self-sufficiency, and eschewing the outside world, the TPP was an obvious target. But what’s especially disconcerting is that the president didn’t need to go this far to keep TPP out of play. The agreement couldn’t possibly take effect without congressional passage of implementing legislation, and his signature affixed. He could have just kept TPP on the back-burner in the event that its utility, relevance, or imperative to U.S. economic and geostrategic objectives became evident, as his term progressed. Because it will.
My colleagues and I did a thorough, chapter-by-chapter assessment of the TPP and concluded that, on net, implementation would advance our economic freedoms. But there is also a geostrategic rationale for the TPP that compels beyond the text of the agreement. I presented that case in a few different articles, but here’s an excerpt from the most recent oped, in The Hill:
https://www.cato.org/blog/withdrawing-tpp-was-senseless-act-wanton-destruction
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